Thanksgiving in Ghana

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I can’t believe that November is almost over already! I think that I have had difficulty feeling like the year is ending because there are not really any dramatic changes in the weather like there is in Utah. The only climate change that I have experienced is hot and hotter! It is getting to the point where it is unbearably hot when I sleep, even with a fan on and as thin of clothes as I can wear. It will be nice to come home and have to layer on the sweatshirt and pile on blankets when I sleep in the cold basement haha. It was SO nice to talk to everyone on Thursday! It was good to see faces of cousins, aunts and uncles, and Grandma Johanna!

This week I spent some time studying for a final exam, working on human anatomy, and reading more research for my thesis. On Thursday all of the ISEP students had Thanksgiving dinner at Auntie Theresa’s house (ISEP director). She lives in a REALLY nice house out in Nungua (about 30-40 minutes from campus when there is not any traffic). She had lots of tables and chairs set up in her back yard and we were joined by her family and her friends and some students from another exchange program. The food was absolutely delicious! We had all of the classic Thanksgiving foods: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes with gravy, green bean casserole,  rolls, sweet potatoes, and even macaroni and cheese! All of us were SO excited to eat and we piled our plates pretty high with as much food as we could fit in our stomachs. After we ate we all sat around the gazebo to let the food settle. I ate so much food that my stomach started hurting and I had to lay down on the ground to ease the pain hahaha! It was such a great night to spend with my closest friends here. Although I missed being with the family, it sure was a nice night with my ISEP family.

On Friday I woke up early and walked across campus for my first written exam. This test was for the Music of West and Central Africa class. The way that testing is set up here is quite strange… They give you the time/date/location of your final and when you go you are in a room with about 2-4 other courses taking their final as well. You have to find the desk that has your ID number written in chalk and that is where you have to sit. As you take the test about 2-3 different people come around and you have to show your ID card and sign a paper stating that you took the exam. We were given two and a half hours to write our exam. There were about 20 short answer questions and then we had to write 3 essays. I felt like I did really well on the exam! I knew almost all of the short answer questions and I wrote about 9 pages total for the 3 essays.

Later on Friday I went to Adenta to spend another Thanksgiving dinner with the Oparey family. I met them at stake conference last weekend and they invited me to join them. Natasha Oparey is an American from Alaska and her husband Emmanuel is Ghanaian. Brother Oparey served his mission in Provo and then went to BYU-Idaho where he met Natasha. They have been living in Ghana as a family for almost a whole year now. They have two ADORABLE and brilliant children, Dante and Iris. They had about 20 family members over for the dinner. They were all from Brother Oparey’s side of the family and it was their first Thanksgiving experience haha! The Oparey’s also invited Jackie and Julie, the two American girls that I met a few weeks ago. It was fun to see them again. The dinner was also very delicious! Two nights in a row of mass amounts of food!!! It was really interesting to hear about Sister Oparey's experience in moving to Ghana and being married to a Ghanaian. It really made me think hard about how I would react to all of those live changes if I was in her position. I think that it would have to take the right person (husband) and an amazing support system (family) for me to be able to pick up my life in the United States and decide to move (most likely for about 15-20 years) to another country with my family... It was definitely food for thought haha. After everyone ate and the dinner was cleaned up, Jackie and Julie and I stayed and played some board games with Brother Oparey. I beat him twice at Blockus! (Mom would be so proud of me haha). It was such a fun night!

Well, in 3 weeks from today I will be on my way to London! I am really excited to be spending a few days there on my way home. There are still some things that I want to do in Ghana before I leave. This coming week I am preparing for a performance on Thursday and then I will be traveling to the Volta Region on Friday and Saturday to do some mountain hiking, monkey watching, and waterfall swimming! That is where I wanted to go for my birthday weekend (wwwhhhaaaatt!?!?!? Birthday? I can’t believe it is next week… I’m getting so old haha!). Anyway, I love you all and miss you! Have a wonderful week!

Oh yeah... by the way... I'm losing weight!

Pre-meal bliss

Post-meal coma haha

After coma snuggling :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Final exam time is here! This past week I had 3 of my practical exams (2 drumming and then dancing). My first drum exam on Monday went VERY well! I played a song called Bema with another student and we used the dunno drum and the panlogo drum. It was actually fun to perform because the other student and I have studied this particular drum piece in depth and we were able to do some advanced techniques. My second drumming exam was alright. I messed up a little on the master drum part but was able to find my way back into rhythm again. Even though our group didn’t perform perfectly, we honestly were about 200 times better than any other group hahaha (most people in the class are not musically inclined and everyone in our group had musical background). My last practical exam was for Traditional African Dance and it was on Thursday. I performed in a group of 6 people and I had 2 improvisation solos. Overall I think our group did very well! We were able to follow the master drum and changed our dance moves at the right time. My solos went well! I just have a few bruises to show for it. I have 2 more written exams and one performance and then I’m done!!

I was supposed to travel up to the Northern regions of Ghana this weekend but my dance group was switched to perform our final from Tuesday to Thursday (we were going to leave Thursday to travel up North). I don’t want to write much about it because I am still quite angry and frustrated that the dance instructors would not let me perform on Tuesday and that I probably will not be getting all of my money back that I paid for the Northern trip. Let’s just sum it all up that I feel like the people here in Ghana and more specifically the administration here at this university have demanded that we just have a “go with the flow” attitude. But when I ask for the same flexibility on my behalf, it is not given.

On a happier note… Because I did not travel this weekend I was able to attend the Adenta Stake Conference! The general session on Sunday was a regional broadcast for the stakes and districts in the Africa West area and the Africa Southeast area. It was nice to hear from Elder Cardon of the seventy, a member of the young women’s presidency, Elder Christofferson, and President Monson. It was interesting to hear what they had to say to the people in this area of the world and what council they were given that might be different or unique to the people here. They talked about some of the cultural marriage practices here in Africa and how those practices are not in line with what the church leaders have counseled about marriage.

Well that’s about all that I have to post for now. I have less than one month until I leave and I have a lot that I have to do! Thesis research and writing, online human anatomy class, internship applications, drum practicing, studying for finals, and last minute traveling in Ghana! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving week!!! I will be excited to talk to all of the family. I will be spending Thanksgiving at our ISEP Directors house where all of the other international students in our program will enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving feast! But I'm sure they won't have my favorite funeral potatoes haha. 

Exams, Togo, and LDSSA

What an incredible week! It is hard to believe that my classes at the University of Ghana have ended and we are now entering the time for examinations to begin. I completed my first drumming exam today and I think that I passed with flying colors! I didn’t even mess up once and I received compliments from all of the drum professors who were there. I have my dance exam tomorrow, another drumming exam on Wednesday, and then it is off to the Northern Region of Ghana for a few days before I have more exams and performances.

This weekend I traveled to Togo! This is the country just east of Ghana. We traveled there by trotro for about 4 hours to the border city of Aflou. We passed through the Ghana side, and then went to the Togo side for our visa applications. Within just a few hundred feet, the atmosphere completely changed. There was something exhilarating about crossing a border that is hard to describe. There was a feeling of nervousness and excitement as we received our stamps in our passports allowing us to go into another country. It seriously made me so excited to fill up my passport with more stamps!

While in Togo we walked along the ocean line about 30 minutes away from the border to the hotel Le Galion. Togo is a French speaking country so we were lucky to have someone in our group who spoke French so she could translate for us. We ate out that night for my friend Rose’s birthday. On Saturday we woke up at 5:30 so we could walk to the beach to see the sunrise. It was SO beautiful! In my mind I was thinking how incredible it was to see the sun rise in another country. We spent the rest of our time eating French food, walking around the market, and relaxing at the beach. One of the scariest/best parts of the whole trip was riding the moto-taxi. In Togo they don’t use trotros as the way for public transportation, they use motorcycles to take 1-2 people around. I was scared to get on because of my nerves for riding something with two wheels but I managed to do it (twice I might add…) and I LOVED it! Such a great weekend.

On Sunday I taught the primary class for the first time. I think the class went well but I was just nervous. I think that the next time I teach I need to be more interactive with the children so that I don’t lose their attention haha. I registered for my last semester at USU! I am really excited for my spring semester schedule. I do not have too many classes but I will be working hard on my thesis and preparing for my internship. I am still in the process of deciding where I should apply but I definitely have it narrowed down to about 8 different sites right now. It is just hard to apply at this time because I need a lot of documents/recommendation letters that I cannot get while I am gone.

Something unique that happened today (Monday) that made the world a whole lot smaller for me…  I went out to eat lunch with 2 girls who I met at church and are here to do some volunteer work. They are about 18-19 years old and I met them at church. One girl told me that she is from California but spent her last year of high school at a boarding school in Utah. When I asked her what school she went to she said she attended West Ridge Academy!  She graduated in March from WRA and then I started working there in May! How crazy is that?!? It was good to talk with her about people that we both knew and things that we both knew about there.

The last thing that I wanted to share was an experience that I had tonight at our last LDSSA Family Home Evening meeting. Before we began the lesson, the LDSSA president had me come up and announced that this would be the last time that I would be with the group. He then proceeded to invite any of the LDSSA members to come up to the front and share any departing thoughts with me. About 8 different people came up and shared some stories and thoughts about my involvement in the LDSSA group. There were words that were shared which I will never forget. Sometimes you never know how what impact you will have on the lives of others until a moment like this. I was able to share my gratitude with them for their faith, their friendship, and their firmness in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This group of students has truly been examples to me of those who let their light shine for those around them. In closing, Daniel and Lizy sang a duet to the hymn “Each Life That Touches Ours For Good.” This song holds a special place in my heart because it was sung at my Grandpa Truss’ funeral. They didn't know the significance of this song for me and it was a tender mercy from the Lord. I know that fellowship in the church is one of the most important things that help me to stay on the straight and narrow path. I have tried to surround myself with good friends who have the same standards and values that can help encourage me and be my support. I know that Heavenly Father has shown His love for me by bringing this group of people into my life.

Homework, Sleep, and General Conference

Writing on this blog every week reminds me of when I would email home every week when I was on my mission. Like those mission emails, some weeks you have SO much to write about. And other weeks, like this one, there is not much to say.

I didn’t do any traveling this weekend because I had a lot of school work to catch up on. I practiced my drums, wrote two papers, and got caught up on some sleep!

On Saturday morning I went to the Adenta Stake Primary Music Festival. All of the primary groups in the stake came together for a morning of musical sharing. All 9 wards/branches sang the SAME two songs. By the end of the event, I was more than ready to not hear “Nephi’s Courage” for a while haha. Although I love being involved with the primary, I think that I am a little timid around the children. According to the practices here in Ghana, any adult has the right/responsibility for the care and discipline of a child. I think that it just makes me a little nervous to pick up a child who I don’t know or to take a child out of the classroom when they are misbehaving. Hopefully I will be able to feel more comfortable as I spend more time with them.

Today (Sunday) we had our own version of General Conference. Because the churches here do not receive the conference broadcast when it occurs in October, the members here wait for the DVDs to arrive and then they watch two of the sessions on the first Sunday in November at the church building. It was really nice to spend the day watching the conference sessions. It made me a little homesick for our “traditional” conference weekend of coming home from school to spend time with the family. But there is always next conference!

The last piece of news that I have to share with you… I will be spending 5 days in London on my way home from Ghana! My mom has worked really hard to call the airlines and rearrange my plane ticket to leave Accra to London on December 16^th and then still catch my flight home from London to the USA on December 21^st! I will be traveling with my friends Kristen and Annie and we will get a chance to tour around London for a few days! I was really sad when I did not get to spend time in London on my way to Ghana, especially because the Olympics were happening at the time… But now I get to go on my way home! I am already preparing myself to go from 80+ degree weather to the lovely England winter haha.

The time I am spending here is going by so quickly.  I hope that everyone is doing well and is having a wonderful week!
(Sorry there are not any pictures posted this week. I will do better next time!)